One of the great mysteries of American history is the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. The pioneering pilot disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. 76 years later a grainy sonar image is giving researchers hope that they may have located Earhart's airplane, according to the Huffington Post.

A photo released by The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), seen here, could possibly be the Electra, the twin engine plane that Earhart was flying. The photo shows an "anomaly" that is roughly 22 feet long and resting at a depth of 600 feet located close to Nikumaroro Island, according to Fox News.

"What initially got our attention is that there is no other sonar return like it in the entire body of data collected," Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR told Discovery News. "It is truly an anomaly, and when you're looking for man-made objects against a natural background, anomalies are good."

Gillespie and his team have made 10 expeditions to Nikumaroro Island and believe that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan crash landed on the reef and became castaways, according to Discovery News. Part of the evidence supporting this theory is a jar of "anti-freckle cream" that was discovered on the island, according to the Huffington Post.

Nikumaroro Island has been suspected as a potential final resting spot for Earhart and Noonan for years. Speculation started after the revelation of "the Bevington photo" taken only three months after the disappearance. The photo depicts what appears to be pieces of a plane on the island, according to Discovery News.

"The Bevington photo shows what appears to be four components of the plane: a strut, a wheel, a worm gear and a fender," Gillespie told Discovery News. "In the debris field there is what appears to be the fender, possibly the wheel, and possibly some portions of the strut."

The anomaly in the sonar photograph is the appropriate size to be the Electra and also lines up in a logical manner with the debris field depicted in the Bevington photo, according to Fox News.

"The better a piece of evidence looks, the harder you have to try to disqualify it," a statement on TIGHAR's website said. "So far, the harder we have looked at this anomaly, the better it looks...Maybe it's pure coincidence that it's the right size and shape to be the Electra wreckage- the Electra that so much other evidence suggests should be in that location."

TIGHAR is trying to raise more money so that they can conduct an expedition to hopefully verify if the anomaly is indeed the long lost wreckage of the Electra but they have to raise a tremendous amount of money to be able to do so.

"We currently project that it will take nearly $3 million to put together an expedition that can do what needs to be done," Gillespie said. "It's a lot of money, but it's a small price to pay for finding Amelia."